Historical discarding in Mediterranean fisheries: a fishers' perception

Abstract

Abstract Discarding of commercially important fish species in the bottom trawl fisheries in the northern Mediterranean Sea was investigated by soliciting the long-term recollections of fishers engaged or formerly engaged in such fisheries. The main aim of our investigation was to describe the prevalence of discarding and its evolution over the past 70 years using information gathered through individual questionnaire-based interviews with fishers from ports in Spain, Italy, and Greece, following a standardized sampling protocol. Although it proved impossible to derive absolute estimates of the volume of discarded catches over the period investigated, we conclude that over the past 70 years, discarding as a practice has gradually increased in the northern Mediterranean trawl fisheries and has been accompanied by a shift in the species composition of the discarded catch. While discarding can occur for a number of reasons, our investigations indicate that discarding in the past was mostly driven by market demand, but recent legal and regulatory constraints have led to changes in fishing strategies and became a significant reason for discards.